Trevor Cooney had missed 18 of his first 20 3-point attempts in a Syracuse basketball uniform. So when Brandon Triche passed him the ball Monday night and Cooney rattled home a jumper from outside the 3-point arc, Cooney and Triche both answered with a celebratory fist pump.

For Triche, a veteran Syracuse player who has watched Cooney sink 3-pointers with regularity during Orange practices, the sight of the ball finally falling for the freshman guard evoked a certain empathy.

“Just being a freshman and going through it, you miss a few, you miss a lot, you’re thinking ‘Aw, man, when’s the next one?’” Triche said. “And I know with him being a great shooter if he made one, he was going to make another one. And hopefully he can just improve from that.”

Cooney made another one on Monday in Syracuse’s 84-48 romp over Rob Murphy’s visiting Eastern Michigan squad in the Carrier Dome. The redshirt freshman guard, along with fellow rookies Dajuan Coleman and Jerami Grant, reached double-figure scoring on an evening when minutes were plentiful for the Syracuse freshmen.

Coleman, the Jamesville-DeWitt product, led the Orange with 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting. Jerami Grant impressed with 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting. And then there was Cooney, the shooter by trade who has struggled to sink shots.

The two 3-pointers he drained went a long way, he said, to restoring his confidence.

“It felt really good,” Cooney said. “It was good just to get the first one going and the second was just a nice rhythm shot for me.”

A murmur hums through the Syracuse crowd when Cooney touches the ball outside the arc. He said he occasionally hears somebody shout “Keep shooting,” but for the most part, he does not notice the noise.

“He’s a good shooter. He’s going to make some,” SU coach Jim Boeheim said. “I think he got hit on the two that he threw up there that were short. But he’s just gotta keep getting in his spots and get his shot up there. The two fouls shots loosened him up a little bit. His defense has been good. He’s just gotta keep plugging away.”

Grant, the lean 6-foot-8 freshman lodged behind C.J. Fair and James Southerland, played the best game of his young Syracuse career. He sank a shot in the lane after creating separation from EMU shot-blocker Da’Shonte Riley, the Syracuse transfer. He finished on the fast break and converted the resulting free throw. He sank a 3-pointer from the wing. Then he caught the ball in the lane and flicked a no-look pass to Dajuan Coleman on the low block.

“I saw him out the corner of my eye,” Grant said, “so I figured the person behind him wasn’t going to be able to get there, so I threw it to him.”

“I thought Jerami had a really good first half,” Boeheim said. “When it was anybody’s game he made some really good plays.”

Grant considers his mission this season to be “the energy guy,” the player who can scrap for a rebound, finish inside, grab a rebound or block a shot when called upon.

He played 15 minutes on Monday and made efficient use of his court time.

“It definitely helps build my confidence,” he said. “I feel like I get more comfortable the longer I’m on the court and I feel like that’s what happened today.”

His pass to Coleman might have been Grant’s most dazzling play, but the fact that Coleman was positioned on the low block to catch it also merits mention.

Boeheim has pleaded with Coleman to catch the ball closer to the block, to not drift too far from the rim, where his options are complicated by his basketball immaturity at the college level.

Coleman said Monday that he has made a concerted effort to obey that instruction.

“The first couple games, I think I got the ball a little bit outside the box and I really didn’t have any moves,” he said. “So just in practice, I tried to get the ball deep down inside as I can so it could be easier for me.”

“If he gets the ball in the right areas, he’s perfectly capable of finishing around the basket,” Boeheim said. “He’s got a lot to work on.”

That directive applies to all of SU’s rookies. The shooter (Cooney). The slasher (Grant). And the banger (Coleman).

On Monday, all of them worked on their craft and saw encouraging results.

“It was good,” Cooney said. “When you have guys come off the bench and add to the game, it’s going to make us that much better.”